Hello,I am making a type of LED arrangement almost like a display board with over 20 LEDs being used. My arduino gets very hot when i power 12 of them at once. Can someone draw me a setup on how I could hook up an external Power supply to power all of the LEDs while using the arduino as a switch? Thank you all!!!

20 LEDs isnt too many for the arduino to control, even at 20mA each, but it depends on how you plan on wiring things up. You can also take advantage of serial data transfer, to control many many LEDs, which includes 20. There are many methods of serializing and controlling the LEDs one way may be better than another way, depending on many factors.

If you multiplex 20 LEDs in a 4 x 5 matrix, you end up needing a total of 9 control lines, but you could multiplex in many ways. You could further reduce the control lines by charlieplexing the LEDs.

If dimming or brightness are important, you may want to consider taking advantage of PWM.

There are a lot of factors, based on only knowing that you want to control 20 LEDs, I'd say multiplex or charlieplex are the easiest options.

If using an external power supply is important, then using a constant current driver is maybe the best option.

Hello,I am making a type of LED arrangement almost like a display board with over 20 LEDs being used. My arduino gets very hot when i power 12 of them at once. Can someone draw me a setup on how I could hook up an external Power supply to power all of the LEDs while using the arduino as a switch? Thank you all!!!

First we need to know if you need to be able to turn on and off each of the 20 leds independently of each other or do they all turn on and off together as a single unit? Or some situation between those two extremes?

My copy of the datasheet says maximum current allowed through the VCC or GND pin is 200mA...

20x20 is 400 - too much.

I cant find it right now, but Im fairly certain that the 5v line has a 500mA max because of the voltage on board voltage regulator. Each I/O pin is 40, and the 3.3 pin is 50mA. according to:http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardUno

but it doesnt list the 5v pins current max.

I looked in the datasheet thats linked on the same page, and it does list this:DC Current VCC and GND Pins................................ 200.0 mAon page 313, but I think thats the IC, not the arduino as a whole.

My copy of the datasheet says maximum current allowed through the VCC or GND pin is 200mA...

20x20 is 400 - too much.

I cant find it right now, but Im fairly certain that the 5v line has a 500mA max because of the voltage on board voltage regulator. Each I/O pin is 40, and the 3.3 pin is 50mA. according to:http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardUno

but it doesnt list the 5v pins current max.

I looked in the datasheet thats linked on the same page, and it does list this:DC Current VCC and GND Pins................................ 200.0 mAon page 313, but I think thats the IC, not the arduino as a whole.

Yes the total +5vdc current available from the board is higher then 200ma, but it the things being powered are being controlled by digital output pins then their combined load current has to pass through the chips output pins thus the chip's lower total current limit takes precedence. That is unless one uses external switching transistors (or driver ICs) to control the current switching duties and the output pins only have to drive the transistor inputs.

Reliability and electronic life time is a statistical thing. If you over stress the components then that life time gets shortened no question about that. However, seeing that with a sample size of one is impossible no matter if it carries on working until hell freezes over or it goes fut tomorrow.

VCC and AVCC can each support 200mA - so 400mA total.The ports should then be limited to 300mA:3. Although each I/O port can source more than the test conditions (20mA at VCC = 5V, 10mA at VCC = 3V) under steady stateconditions (non-transient), the following must be observed:ATmega48A/PA/88A/PA/168A/PA/328/P:1] The sum of all IOH, for ports C0 - C5, D0- D4, ADC7, RESET should not exceed 150mA.2] The sum of all IOH, for ports B0 - B5, D5 - D7, ADC6, XTAL1, XTAL2 should not exceed 150mA.If IIOH exceeds the test condition, VOH may exceed the related specification. Pins are not guaranteed to source currentgreater than the listed test condition.

So at 360mA, you're pushing it some.Best bet is to use a couple of external shift registers such as TPIC6B595 that can sink the higher current amounts.78 cents from avnet.comhttps://avnetexpress.avnet.com/store/em/EMController/Counter-Shift-Register/Texas-Instruments/TPIC6B595N/_/R-1750249/A-1750249/An-0?action=part&catalogId=500201&langId=-1&storeId=500201&listIndex=-1&page=1&rank=0

Well, technically just using the electronics shortens its life. so the only way to ultimately protect your electronics is to not ever use them.

Sample size has nothing to do with it. but if you say it can work until hell freezes over, then it sounds like specifications dont really matter.

Why do you persist in being so resistant to trying to understand this subject? Those two statements are totally wrong. You have been told many times but you think that you know best. Let me tell you now, you don't.The human propensity for self delusion never ceases to amaze me.